


Lighting Candles

by Drappersky



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: Corpses, Dead Marshes, Gen, Ghosts, Horror, One Shot, Original Character Death(s), Original Character(s), Rain, TTW, Terrifying Tolkien Week, ttww
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-25
Updated: 2015-10-25
Packaged: 2018-04-28 00:02:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5070094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Drappersky/pseuds/Drappersky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Why people go around the Dead Marshes for miles. Don’t follow the lights. Made for Terrifying Tolkien Week.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lighting Candles

A fog had crept up as I walked in the direction of The Great River. I pulled up my hood and brought the edges of my cloak around my body, ignoring the chill. It had been an extremely rainy year with floods common across Rhovanion, but I was sure of my path, only worried about arriving in Osgiliath on time. I was more than two weeks into my trip and had just made my way through Emyn Muil, no easy task, when I came upon the marsh. I must have gotten off track, for this was not my first time traveling to Gondor and I would have remembered this place, if only by its unsettling presence. It was entirely made up of brown withered plants, putrid pools and thick black muck. I had never seen a marsh quite so forbidding before and a cold damp clung to me as I journeyed along its border. The atmosphere was heavy and wet; it felt like I was breathing water into my lungs rather than air.

I traveled all day, stumbling over bumpy ground and dried grass tufts, but I didn’t feel any closer to the end of the marshland or have any idea where I was. An uneven burble and a low popping blurp were the only noises to be heard until suddenly somewhere farther in the marsh there was a wild scrabbling sound and then a sharp splash. I whipped around looking for the source, but all that met my eye was dead reeds, the mist and a lazy ripple moving on the water. Finally settling down for the night, I couldn’t find sleep. An odd indistinct cloying sensation kept jerking me away from unconsciousness.

It started raining early in the morning, gray grim clouds dumping cisterns full of cold water on my sleep- deprived body. Gathering my things, I noticed the bog’s edge had crept closer to my campsite in the night, leaving only a small footpath above the water for me to follow. The one time I staggered off the path the filth sucked my boot down until it stuck. Struggling, I yanked my foot free, but not without getting covered in gritty mud. 

I continued my trek for the next two days fighting the rain. It beat down, soaked my clothes and ran down my back like caressing icy fingers. I pushed myself harder through the unpredictable footing and acrid stench that came off the deeper mires, until the rain finally broke on the night of the third day. It left the marsh quiet and damp. The silence woke me from another night of restless sleep.

Observing the area with bleary eyes, I noticed how calm the night seemed. I could even see a few stars twinkling in the sky. That was when the lights appeared. Not like a camp or brushfire, but candles bobbing through the dark. My heart beat against my ribcage as I fixed my astonished gaze on the sight. I had been alone the whole time I traveled through the marsh, not coming across a single human or animal. Now these strange candles lit up the night, but they were no comfort. They were distant, disconcerting and though I was sure they were flames, they gave off a peculiar green glow. The hair on my arms and neck stood up on end as more and more came to life. The mist climbed up from the still water, obscuring my sight yet again. I knew little of swamps, but I had never seen or heard of such a thing before. 

I crept cautiously through the reeds to examine the closest light flickering a few yards away. It hovered on the edge of one of the deep clouded ponds that filled the marsh. I had glanced into the waters by day and seen nothing but green-brown weeds slowly waving in their murky depths. But as the firelight illuminated the surface I could see down through the sludge and what I had thought were weeds turned into long snarled hair.

Hair that framed the pale white face of an elf. As I stared, more faces appeared in the water, all pale, some rotten and grotesque, others ethereal and perfectly preserved, all long dead. I wanted to scream, to run, to never look down into their depths again, but I couldn’t. My legs gave out and I fell to my knees in the slime and weeds that lined the edge of the pool, heartbeat racing in my ears. There were corpses in the water. I couldn’t get enough air into my lungs, I couldn’t move and I could not look away from the grotesque scene in front of me.

The flame that had drawn me here guttered, casting deceiving shadows. A small breeze made the water ripple and the reeds sway against my back. They all seemed so calm, lying a mere inch under the water or maybe they were much deeper. The closest face, shadowed by a cloud of tangled black hair, appeared to rise to the surface, lips parted, eyes closed, one hand almost extended out to me. I must have been out of my mind, but I was seized by the impulse to reach in and touch it.

My hand shook uncontrollably as I held it over the water. I didn’t want to do this, my fingers twitched away from the horror, but I could no longer pull myself back. As my hand broke the still glass of the mire, a hundred blind, white eyes flashed open. Serene faces contorted into savage gaping maws and the ice-cold hand I had reached out for closed around my wrist with an unescapable grip. The corpse yanked me forward, face down into the marsh, as I kicked and clawed at it. I gasped as the scum closed over my head, water filled my mouth, burning in my lungs as more and more hands grabbed my limbs, dragging me deeper and deeper, down into the dark, rotting sludge. 

“There are dead things! Dead faces in the water. All dead... all rotten. Elves and men and orcses. A great battle, long ago. The Dead Marshes... yes, that is their name. Don’t follow the lights. Careful now, or you go down to join the dead ones and light little candles of your own.”- J.R.R. Tolkien The Two Towers


End file.
